HearFromYourMP

Comments

• Posted by Mr Christopher Mitchell, 18:55, Tue 14 April 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  I would like to express serious concerns as to how local authority matters concerning the area are conducted. We have now spent five years living here, with the previous eighteen years visiting. Prior to that we lived/worked in Hackney and Enfield, London. Both areas had similar social problems to Thanet but the lack of open debate and ease of access to Thanet council is a real issue, creating somewhat of a siege mentality. As a first post I believe it would be unhelpful to raise specific examples as I do not think this would be the correct use of this type of forum - they normally end up as slanging matches. But individuals do appear to play a greater role here than the other areas mentioned. I gather that it has been this way in Thanet for a very long time.

• Posted by Natalie, 07:35, Wed 15 April 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Hi,

  I tend to only find out about new projects once the building has actually commenced but to be honest, i wouldnt know how one would know about them in advance. I guess they are posted on the TDC website, i know small placards are usually placed near a potential site but this then requires you to actually regularly pass the place to notice it although if it were a shopping complex then it COULD affect me as a resident although I may never go near the site (traffic flow and parking being a highly visible contributory factor) and building plans are likely in the local Extra (which i do not receive).

  Maybe councils should now make more use of electronic media such as forums and websites. As someone reasonably young and working full time i wouldnt be able to attend committess or groups to present my objections, only the older people are more likely to be able to attend and with the best of intentions, they cannot reflect the growing demands of a community in as full a way.

  Mr Ladyman should encourage better routes to facilitate building objections and positive discussions, my feeling is that at present building intentions are understated and that breeds a feeling of underhandness, ie, a little advert here, hope noone notice and then wallop, highly objectionale object many months later when its too late.

  Natalie

• Posted by Stephen Ladyman, 10:37, Wed 15 April 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  It is interesting that someone (Mr Mitchell) who is from outside Thanet believes things are done so differently here. He raises the concern that TDC is 'unapproachable' and Natalie also calls for better routes to facilitate discussion of developments and wants better use of the electronic fora. Thanet's planning applications are all posted on-line but she is right - there is no way on the planning portal to enter into a discussion of them. Obviously you can join the various 'blogs' to comment but most of them are unsuitable homes for a constructive debate. I'd welcome ideas about how I can help correct this.

• Posted by Brian Kitcher, 11:31, Wed 15 April 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Hello Steve

  I am very glad you raise this subject for discussion; it is a primary concern of mine for several reasons:

  Firstly, I cannot believe how many planning approvals have been given for retirement homes and other apartment developments in Ramsgate and Margate. What we need in Thanet is housing affordable to our young people, born and brought up here. Whilst I understand that the area needs new money to come in, it does not appear to be targeted at improving the lot of local people. Property movements may have slowed but prices are certainly not falling in Thanet. Local people cannot compete with the wealth of those from London and the home counties who have woken up to what a lovely place Thanet is and how reasonably accessible it in both transport and financial terms. I seem to remember that Dame Shirley Porter and her fellow councillors were found to be on dodgy ground for similar planning decisions in Westminster. I cannot imagine that wealthy Londoners moving here will be natural Labour voters who care deeply about the sometimes intense social deprivation experienced by some of our people.

  Secondly, we desperately need leisure facilities here. In Ramsgate, our prime recreational site is to be taken over by the Royal Sands development. This again sells our social assets to the wealthy who have only a selfish financial interest - they will not worry about the loss of the seafront view from the east cliff. This will be an opportunity lost for ever; why couldn't we have had an ice rink, for example, that would have given a focal point to the beach and harbour area?

  Thirdly, when developers are found to have flaunted the planning permission by building a residential block of flats at the junction of Victoria Road and King Street in Ramsgate, no enforcement action was taken. The building was a full metre higher than had been approved but once agian our Tory council let them get away with it. Finance and big business trample over the people once more.

  Lastly, when a prominent tory TDC & KCC councillor was asking a local family on their doorstep recently, they allege that he laughed out loud in their faces when they asked for the Pleasurama site be developed into something for our young people. I shouldn't have expected any less.

• Posted by Colin Goldring, 11:59, Wed 15 April 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  My perspective is that the context needs to be understood. There is clearly a lack of infrastructure in terms of roads and other facilities, exacerbated by Manston and Westwood. We have an enormous shopping centre with terrible access, but if you want to take your children swimming you are left with Ramsgate pool or driving to Tides, both deperately in need of refurbishment. Anyone who has tried to go to Westwood on a Saturday or even move around in the rush hour will realise the problems. New developments are fine, but if you have large numbers of bored young people wandering around the streets, causing trouble and forcing business away from the area (e.g. drinking, taking drugs and physically attacking foreign students), then the main issues are not being addressed. In this context, any new development can only add to the problem and therefore tends to be viewed negatively. Sort out (in particular) the roads and leisure facilities and there would be far less hostiliy to planning applications.

• Posted by Stephen Ladyman, 08:57, Thu 16 April 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  The comments by Mr Goldring and Mr Kitcher have a lot in common with other comments sent to me 'privately' as a result of this discussion. Concerns that not enough property is being aimed at younger people, a lack of leisure facilities, road and transport problems around Westwood etc.

  The Royal Sands development is a concern for many - personally I don't object to some residential development on that site so long as there are also elements of the scheme that are for public use, such as leisure, or that will attract tourists, such as entertainment or hotels. The initial plans for this site had a reasonable balance of leisure and residential but the current plans are far too skewed towards residential. However, the Council has approved them so, unless the scheme falls through, that battle is lost.

  That said, the money the Council will receive should be committed to a leisure development for Ramsgate. In particular, a new swimming pool - as Mr Goldring says, the current pool is very tired. The Government has a scheme for helping Councils rebuild pools and will cover a large part of the cost and with money from the Pleasurama development we could have something really exciting.

  As for roads, the Government has already offered funding to KCC for the final phase of the East Kent Access Road Development and work should start next year all being well but KCC have made no bid for money to improve the roads at Westwood and their plans are largely dependent on 'developer contributions' as the various Westwood developments go ahead. In my view, they need to be far more pro-active especially if Thanet College eventually moves to Westwood too.

• Posted by Mr Christopher Mitchell, 15:19, Tue 5 May 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  In relation to planning and the development of Thanet overall, is there a long term plan in place for Thanet? If there is, what is it? I find it hard to perceive what the short to long term aims of development are but would hope there are some. As already mentioned the development at Westwood gives cause for concern. A bottleneck has now been created which will seriously hamper access to Broadstairs, Ramsgate and Margate. A traffic build up from Westwood to the roundabout at Sandwich Road and Canterbury Road would create gridlock. The alternative route of the A28 via Birchington is unfair to those residing along its route. High pollution levels at Birchington are well recorded, as is the slow pace of traffic. Further housing development at Westwood would exacerbate the situation. I don`t have a solution but the problem cannot be ignored. The whole of Thanet appears vehicle based. Walking or cycling around Thanet is not an alternative but could be if the required infastructure was in place and usable. Cycle tracks exist but suddenly terminate onto roads with parked vehicles and not enough space for other drivers to pass around without slowing down. I`ve even seen designated cycle tracks with sign posts in the middle of them! The paving along St Peters Road and Dane Court Road designated as a cycle track/pedestrian way is terrifying. The road, with a 50mph limit, has no barrier to separate those using the pavement and passing traffic. Those walking are treated just as badly. I have seen crossing points which lead nowhere or force pedestrians in amongst drivers patiently waiting to pull out at junctions. Have organisations such as sustrans, a transport charity, ever been consulted? Those who need to use a bus, car or van to get from A to B should be allowed to, but by providing safe alternatives we could provide more choice. As a starting point I would like to propose the idea of a restricted speed limit around roads in the vicinity of local schools. This would operate during school crossing times only and could reduce speeds down to 10 or 20mph. The idea was recently raised in the national press but I would like to see Thanet doing something first for once. Most of the traffic concerned would be parents running their children to school and it might lead to more children walking/cycling.

• Posted by Stephen Ladyman, 17:17, Wed 6 May 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Mr Mitchell

  You make some good points although I would say that people overlook the opportunities for using alternatives to the car in Thanet. We have a great bus system for a District like ours (the Thanet Loop is one of the most successful new bus systems in the country and was made possible with a Government Grant, as was the Dover Diamond in the Dover part of my constituency), the Government's free bus pass system for older people is very successful as is the Council's Freedom Pass scheme for young people who attend eligible schools, there is a bus interchange area at Westwood that is an integral part of that development, we have a good local train service with stations at Minster, Ramsgate, Dumpton, Broadstairs, Margate, Westgate and Birchington and there are some good cycle paths in addition to the coastal cycle route (although I accept not enough). The fact is that Thanet is car dominated because most people are car orientated.

  That said, our local Councils could do a lot more to encourage sustainable alternatives to vehicles such as walking and cycling. They have just developed a new 'walking route' from Broadstairs to Margate called the Turner-Dickens route but this is the first new route for a long time. We need a lot more and some of the obvious problems like those highlighted in your comments need to be addressed.

  As for long term planning, the Thanet Development Plan can be found at http://thanet.devplan.org.uk/ the local transport plan for Kent can be found at http://www.kent.gov.uk/publications/transport-and-streets/ltp-provisional-plan.htm and the Sustrans website has excerts to do with walking and cycling from the Kent plan at http://www.sustrans.org.uk/webfiles/county/Kent%20Walking%20and%20Cycling%20policy.pdf

  I've also noted your other ideas around speed. When this 'discussion' closes I will be making transport planners and officials at Thanet and Dover aware of it so they can also review it for ideas.

• Posted by Natalie, 10:32, Thu 7 May 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Hi,

  I would imagine that Thanets reliance on personal transportation is not dissimilar to most towns, the cities are another environment as are villages, all have their own reasons and causes to present traffic issues.

  An idea which *could* encompass many environments is some incentive or subsidy to supermarkets for customers using Home Delivery services of grovery shopping. OK the supermarket delivery fees are reasonable already but the roads are massively congested. Again the requirement of Internet access to take full advantage of these services may also exclude a majority of older people however, any steps to lessen the traffic volume would still help the majority.

  To subjectify our own areas access for ease of reference to the audience. Westwood Cross...two of the largest supermarkets, weekends are nightmares as thats when most people will drive there to do their shopping, result is obviously congestion. Remove the number of people needing to visit the store will reduce traffic, will make non superstore traffic quicker to move through and overtime lessen the requirement to secure funds to expand the roads and removing fields, decrease pollution, speed up public transport etc.

  In time the stores could perhaps provide facilities for in-store shoppers to set up home deliveries by creating a receipt system whereby frequent orders could be sent home and thereby helping the old or less Internet enabled customers to migrate away from needing to visit the store as often or at all.

  The Government could contribute to, or eliminate the home delivery charges to encourage the use of these services more.

  I believe that with consideration and deliberation this idea could evolve into a genuine mainstream proposal and I would therefore be interested in reasons to refute the merits of this idea, otherwise let it evolve for the greater good!

  Natalie

• Posted by Stephen Ladyman, 12:03, Fri 8 May 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Natalie

  I think getting 'delivery' costs reduced is a great idea. I doubt the Government would ever consider contributing to them, especially in the current financial climate, but perhaps Councils could do 'deals' with the supermarkets and let them reduce the number of parking places they have to provide in return for the supermarket providing free delivery.

• Posted by Natalie, 20:31, Sun 10 May 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Hi Dr Ladyman,

  To say the Government wouldnt want to assess the real gains of contributing to such a subsidised home delivery scheme purely because of the current financial situation in the world is simply backward thinking and a lazy answer.

  To keep things simple and local as i appreciate differant areas have their own issues. The Highways website (http://www.highways.gov.uk/aboutus/documents/crs_543267.pdf) advises that in 2005/2005 the cost per lane per KM cost £6.8million and £4.6million for a dual carriage way. The need to spend such vast sums of money is driven by an appropriate demand in traffic, reduce the traffic and the imperative to improve those roads diminishes. Westwood Cross roads certainly arent busy at 10pm therefore demand is not consistently high. (One could argue that the commercial hours drive traffic volume)

  For the Government to incentivise home shopping would be far cheaper an exercise if it were proven to be an effective traffic deterrant. Stupid numbers but 20,000 orders per month at £1 subsidy is £20,000, £40,000 if £2. Certainly a whole lot cheaper than however many millions of money is proposed to spend on 'fixing' the current road system, ie, making it larger to cope with higher traffic volumes for about 8 hours max of the 24 available. (when more traffic can traverse the area where will they then park? The car parks are already exceeding capacity, ease more vehicles through then they have to go 'somewhere' and we are running out of fields to concrete over!)

  That 'fix' is about accomodating the traffic levels, not trying to manage the cause of them. The lower traffic volume would be well received by Green policies, the funds of the scheme would be seen as securing local jobs in the stores, it would inevitably create more driving jobs to deliver the goods. Perhaps the shops vehicles could be road tax exempt to make the running of cheaper, perhaps they could be exempt of fuel duty. Those are just a number of ideas easiliy implemented, cost nothing out of current funds and satisfy a number of facets of the econmic situation.

  I personally park my car Friday night and unless i am driving out to Minster, HerneBay or elsewhere to walk my hound over the weekend i try to avoid using my car, its just too much to queue for long periods to move along a road, to enter a road about, to queue into a car park, shop then queue to pay, queue to leave the car park as too much traffic on roundabout and queue for some of the exit route away from the store until off the main route. Its not a problem if one avoids the commercial areas, assures me that the roads in the immediate area are adequate generally.

  I dont agree with the fiscal situation as being an immediate no no, there are too many positive ramifications out of such a scheme that covers many angles.

  Unfortunately there have been no negative comments at present to evolve the idea so i do appreciate i am coming from a bias. Hopefully someone will jump in and help.

  Natalie

• Posted by Natalie, 20:53, Sun 10 May 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Posted by Stephen Ladyman, 11:37, Wednesday 15 April:

  "...you can join the various 'blogs' to comment but most of them are unsuitable homes for a constructive debate. I'd welcome ideas about how I can help correct this..."

  I would very much appreciate an official forum be setup, they are really simple to use, easy to manage and moderate, productive and from my use of them in the past, they provide a 'community feel'. They also offer archival referencing (this current site is rather 'flat' and will easiliy go 'off thread'), concurrent posting (as opposed to this flatness which may detract some posters from posting. A poster may see the last thread, see its not something that motivates them and never post or leaves altogether taking their valuable view with them (lets face it, if someone takes time to find a real site to post in then they have something to say and represents a genuine and valuable participant)

  Why a council has not been forward thinking to implement such a resource is beyond me, as mentioned in my post previously about how building apps are printed on postcards in the area of a proposed build, it projects a sense of underhandedness. Its like "quick, lets put this out to satisfy legal requirments but we wont be bold and make it obvious and invite challenges" kind of approach.

  Certainly the cost of such a forum is negligible, i have used many support forums in my career and for medical support, these forums tend to be set up by 'one-person-bands' from their bedrooms using a variety of free software packages.

  It would be great for a council to make a brave statement and step up their involvement with the working community who otherwise feel isolated in any process and political involvement beyond voting.

• Posted by Stephen Ladyman, 15:48, Mon 11 May 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Natalie

  My reason for saying that I doubt that Government would subsidise the cost of delivery was not just due to the finacial situation, although that is one reason, but also because it would represent a 'state subsidy' which is illegal except under special circumstances and and it would certainly be opposed by people who own shops and who want 'foot traffic' into their premises. However, I did acknowledge it was a good idea worth exploring and I will keep it in mind when I'm discussing these issues with colleagues.

  In respect to your second point, I already offer a way for people to comment on local issues through my website, I'm on Facebook and I have this site. I understand the point you make about the possibility that the Council could create a discussion forum of its own and I believe some councils have done so. I will mention it to them and see if they will consider it.

• Posted by Natalie, 07:45, Tue 12 May 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Hi Dr Ladyman,

  I was unaware of rules regarding subsidies. My comments above are not an attack on any individual or institution, I am merely trying to present facts to drive an argument to encourage a conclusion or debate, i hope that they do not come across in any other way.

  Its interesting to note other councils have decided to use electronic media, that establishes that there is no prohibitive laws regarding its use and so represents local policies. It would be good for the Thanet Council to allow debate in this way.

  Natalie

• Posted by Stephen Ladyman, 18:11, Wed 13 May 2009: (Is this post abusive?) #

  Natalie

  I think we agree.

  Steve

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